Craig Wells

Wolfing Down a Moon Craig Wells

Wolfing Down The Moon, a literary novel of 59,000 words, playing homage to magical realism, and to the novels Walter Mosley and Sherman Alexie, allows Gecko to redeem himself for how he acted as an LA Police detective in the late 20th Century. Gecko, a mammoth white man of 317 pounds, with gentle features and a voice like a woman, cannot delay his retirement after 33 years. LA has fingered him as a chump. He is confused, fed up, angry. He wants to be like the kid who fell in love after a brief, chance encounter with a Centennial High black cheerleader. Maybe he can recover it in the small Oregon mountain town of Joseph. Days before, Jack Santos, a famous Latinx sculptor, disappears into the wilderness. He believes his wife has crashed her Bug and wandered off. Townspeople hate the man. His daughter's only chance is Gecko. Faith ignites his humanity after long conversations about who he really is. She becomes like the daughter Gecko met for the first time three years before. He trusts her, wants to love her, be loved, and heads off. Other narratives slow his investigation. Mondo, a disfigured young black man with a heart bigger than the influence of Motown music on Gecko, recently moves to Joseph to help his mother. He is befriended by a wolf, and Charles Tracking Elk, Nam Vet, medicine man, tai chi master, and finally Cinde with outrageous sexual appetites. All four disliked by this logging town without logs to log. Gecko struggles for clues. Charles guides him to a mystical oak tree, where Twila, Mondo's sister, is about to be raped, and Mondo lynched. Gecko rescues them. It is a good beginning. Gecko returns to LA to take care of an estranged granddaughter. Kelly, eleven years old, bright, wise beyond her years, quickly wins Gecko over. Rumors abound about a serial killer of Latina girls. Kelly sets Gecko straight. A girl allows her leg to be amputated so she can transport fentanyl in her prosthetic. Money to buy drugs for her mother sick with HIV. But a Cartel-like white Madam has her murdered after she fails. Kelly's friend is offered a similar deal. Gecko discovers her at a Greyhound Bus Station where Angelina crouches between stark palm trees as if trapped by prison bars. She crawls onto Gecko's lap and weeps. Gecko too.